New Chicken Coop: Progress Report 1

CIMG3975
Originally uploaded by drmacro.

The chicks are growing fast and will soon outgrow their little pen in the music room (and our patience with having a flock of chickens in the house). I'll be traveling quite a bit between now and the week of Thanksgiving, I realized that if I didn't at least start on the chicken coop now it might not get built before Christmas.

So I spent all day Saturday and Sunday slapping it up. The first picture shows the result after the first day of work. I got the foundation in place and the four walls minimally framed out and raised.

On Sunday I focused on building the chicken house, which will be a three-walled, roofed space where the chickens will roost and where we'll attach the nesting boxes at some point. Once the chicken house is screened in we can move the chicks there while I complete the rest of the screening operation to make the full coop critter proof.

This second picture shows the results of my efforts on Sunday. You can see the chicken house in near right corner.

It looks pretty rustic now because I've built it entirely out of leftover lumber from the construction, which has been out in the weather all summer. Once it dries out we'll paint it to match the house (more construction leftover).

I was hoping do everything with construction waste but there wasn't enough trim lumber (1x4, 1x2, etc.), so I'll have to buy some of that, and I had to buy the foundation pillars and roofing (corrugated plastic) but the total out-of-pocket should still be less than $200.00, which isn't too bad).

Finishing it will require adding more framing as necessary to support the screening, making a door, and putting on the wire, which will take some work because it's got to go down into the ground to prevent critters from digging in.